Heavier than a Cup of Coffee

Just when we thought things were getting settled after 5 weeks of night float, the poo hit the fan, or, rather, the floor…several times. Literally. Though we are in the midst of potty training, this is not a potty training post, but the timing of several events was just so perfect that I couldn’t miss the opportunity to mention the crap hitting the floor. It’s pretty gross when it does. I digress.

Two weeks into Patrick’s “easiest” rotation since September, he broke himself. Yep. Broken. We were playing indoor soccer against a team we’ve played many times before, and Patrick was about to score the winning goal and got taken down with a cleats up slide tackle. Not really. It was half way through the first half and his legs got tangled with another player’s and they both went down (in Patrick’s defense, the other player was most certainly at fault and was given a yellow card for the foul). Patrick landed on his right shoulder. Given his background he was pretty sure he’d dislocated something (given my background, I can’t remember what) so he went to get an x-ray to be sure it wasn’t anything else. It was. His right clavicle (collarbone) was broken and several ligaments were torn.

Of course, that night, he started looking up treatments and surgeries, all the while texting with various other residents in his program. There was a bit of miscommunication and the resident who was in charge of getting scheduling his surgery thought Patrick was talking about a patient and not himself! Once everyone realized that he was the patient with the busted shoulder, they got him in right away. The whole procedure took less than an hour and he’s now the proud owner of a plate and 4 screws. They’ll have to be removed in 6 months. Yay.

I was with him in the recovery room as he was waking up. Unfortunately, he didn’t do anything YouTube worthy, but I sure was hopeful. I listened intently as the chief resident reviewed his recover with us…me…he was still basically asleep. It was pretty standard stuff…keep up with the pain meds, start moving around as soon as it feels ok, keep the incision covered for 4 days, etc., etc., and then he said, “For the next 6 weeks, he shouldn’t lift anything heavier than a cup of coffee.” WHAT?! SIX WEEKS! Though our children are quite tiny, they are, indeed, heavier than a cup of coffee.

Before

After

The first time Patrick went back to work after the surgery, Neala looked at me and said, “Daddy, bad owie, work?” As in, how can daddy go to work with such a bad owie. Now we talk about daddy’s bad owie all the time and how he takes it with him to work. Slowly but surely, his pain is getting a little better, but we’re only at the beginning of week 3 of 6 and we figured out that if I want to do anything out of the house it either has to be while the kids are asleep or we have to have someone come over the help. We are all adapting and it seems that the challenge now is for Patrick to remember that he really can’t use his right arm for much of anything. So, he wipes the counters and picks up the toys while I do the dishes and sweep the floor.

We have some really great friends and family who have stepped in to help us and bring us baked goods, birthday cake, and extra helping hands, and for that, we are grateful!

And a few other tidbits from our lives lately:
– My greatest parenting accomplishment to date: convincing our children that Prince’s Purple Rain is actually about/called Purple Grapes.
– Our kids have discovered an intense love for mustard.
– Playdates with other potty training twin friends are hilarious.